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Sarah Alexander

EDU 280

Fall 2014

This paper is on family history and I am going to write about my family, just not my biologicalfamily. I was emancipated from and left my biological family when I was very young. I left assoon as I could because they hold very fundamentalist religious beliefs and dont believe that I, asa female, should do anything more than get married and have children, let alone become a

physicist. However, I will write about the woman who inspired me to be a strong female and whois partially responsible for my confidence in leaving my family; this woman is my piano teacher,

Carol.

My piano teacher, Carol, was a woman I saw 3-4 hours a day, every single day, except Sunday,since I was 4. When we first started lessons, I was very standoffish with her; she was a stranger

with an eccentric way of dressing, very jazzy. For the first couple years of lessons, we werentclose; there were days when I simply wanted to quit the lesson and days when I was really

excited. When I got older, toward adolescence we started to get to know each other as people, notjust as piano teacher and student. She had seen me at my best and my worst; she had seenemotions I had kept from my own family.

When I was in grade 5, I had a writing assignment where you had to write about someone with aninteresting life story so I chose her, my fierce piano teacher who grew up as a black woman in the

1950s, moved to England when she was 17, explored the world, at times with just her guitar case,busking for enough money for her next train ticket. During the interview with her, she recounted

the severe racism she experienced growing up in Ohio in the 1950s. She told me that sheexperienced discrimination in her classroom growing up, discrimination against her race and hergender, which made her absolutely hate going to school. Instead of just quitting, she just proved

everyone she could be great, and was. In middle school, she found the guitar, she found music,

and got little jobs so she could pay for her lessons (there werent YouTube tutorials in thosedays). As she got older, her skills became more refined and she started sneaking into the jazzclubs that populated the concrete flats in Cleveland at the time. She played and loved it, she metmany people who were just traveling in the town for a short stint and told her about their

experiences, she wanted to explore too, really experience everything. In her early teens, she gotcaught up in the drugs of the 60s and 70s, dropped out of high school, and left for England. Inher late teens and twenties she went all over Europe, tested out different styles of music andexperienced many different cultures. She went back to Cleveland when her father was sick anddecided to enroll in college to get degrees in music; she focused on piano and guitar

instrumentation and theory. She went on to get her PhD in music and form a very strong studentbase full of kids who loved her dearly.

We dont really have traditions, though every year, at least once when she goes out to visit herfamily in Cleveland, I visit and we go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the BotanicalGardens. It was hearing how she made her own life for herself, how she did what was going tomake her happy, that inspired me to go after my own life and follow what I want to do regardless

of what people think. Seeing her dress how she wanted and say what she thought really wasinspirational to me because she was one of the only strong females I had around me growing up.In addition to her fantastic sense of self-confidence and determination to do what she wants, shehad an infectiously positive outlook on life, she knew that things always work out so its notworth stressing and thats an attitude I keep with me at all times.

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Carol taught me a life skill and inspired me to go after what I want, she gave me the confidence

and peace of mind that everything will work out as long as I do whats best. She isnt mybiological family, I havent spoken with them in 8 years, but I think of Carol as a mom and makesure to speak with her every couple weeks and visit as often as I can.